In an effort to help their teenage daughter Carson (Lara Vosburgh), a former straight-A student whose recent heroin addiction is destroying their family, Steve and Beth Morris (Christopher Parker and Colleen McGrann) contact the producers of Step Inside Recovery, a reality-based TV program that, if all goes well, will convince Carson to enter rehab and get her life back on track.

The show’s host / producer, Suzanne (Kate Whitney), makes a bet with her two cameramen Tim (Brian Flaherty) and newcomer Jason (Morgan McClellan) that Carson’s drug problem is a direct result of her father’s alcoholism. But as they spend time with the Morrises and witness Carson’s occasionally-violent outbursts, the trio becomes increasingly convinced that the teenager’s issues run much deeper than disharmony at home. In fact, if Carson herself is to be believed, she needs the heroin to keep an evil spirit that lives inside of her at bay! Continue reading →

“Asmodexia” is a movie I happened upon by chance; the trailer for this Spanish horror film is one of several featured on the DVD for “Inner Demons” and played just before that 2014 movie started. Based on this preview alone, “Asmodexia” looked like it might offer a different spin on the possession subgenre, and I figured it was worth a watch.

Yet not even the trailer could prepare me for how unique this film truly is, and while I was definitely drawn into the movie and even blown away a little by the various twists and turns its story took, I ultimately admired “Asmodexia” more than I actually liked it. Continue reading →

To call director Ana Lily Amirpour’s 2014 film “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” unique is an understatement. Though shot in Northern California, the movie is set in Iran (all the characters speak Farsi), and tells the story of a female vampire (decked out in an Iranian chador) who feeds on the male “undesirables” of Bad Town, an industrial community that, despite being a prime area for oil drilling, is home to some very poor people (the setting gives the film a western vibe, which makes sense considering it has been described by some as an “Iranian Vampire Spaghetti Western”). What’s more, “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” was shot in stunning black-and-white, and even features a romantic subplot (involving the vampire).

Oh, and there’s a scene where the chador-dressed vampire rides a skateboard… can’t forget that.

Its unusual qualities aside, however, “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” is an engaging, often moving, and sometimes spooky film about two very lonely people who, though quite different from one another (he is alive; she is undead), fall deeply in love. Continue reading →